Sadness regulation in daily life in remitted depression: Regulatory repertoire composition and affect-dependent...

Emotion regulation (ER) vulnerabilities that confer risk for depression and persist into remission remain poorly understood. Prior work in depression has primarily examined ER strategies independently, leaving unclear how much each strategy is used within an individual's regulatory repertoire (relative strategy use). We examined whether individuals with remitted depression (rMDD) differ from never-depressed healthy comparisons (HC) in relative strategy use and whether sadness mediates these differences. We also explored whether strategy effectiveness is attenuated in rMDD, particularly in moments of elevated sadness in daily life.

86 young adults with rMDD and HC completed 7-day ecological momentary assessments (3×/day) of sadness and ER strategy use. Relative strategy use was calculated as each strategy's proportion of an individual's total strategy use across the week.

Relative to HC, individuals with rMDD utilized a greater proportion of distraction and a lower proportion of reappraisal. Elevated sadness in individuals with rMDD mediated lower reappraisal proportional use. During moments of greater-than-usual sadness, distraction and reappraisal use predicted lower subsequent sadness in HC, whereas distraction predicted greater subsequent sadness in rMDD. Rumination exacerbated sadness for both groups, with stronger effects in rMDD under high sadness.

Results suggest a skewed ER portfolio in remitted depression characterized by a greater proportion of distraction and a lower proportion of reappraisal. Further, when individuals with rMDD experience elevated sadness, distraction becomes counterproductive and reappraisal provides no benefit. Findings suggest relative strategy use and affect-contingent strategy implementation may be useful targets for improving ER effectiveness and preventing recurrence.